Persistence
by Vala MD
Summary: Carolyn reflects on her relationship with Cameron during "The Powers That Be"


Her eyes were red from staying up for too many hours. Her body was sweating from the bio-hazardous suit she had been wearing around the clock. But worst of all, her head ached from trying to deal with too many sick people. It had been a little over 24 hours since Carolyn had been called to P8X-412 to deal with and try to contain the Ori plague, and she was feeling increasingly helpless with each new patient who came into her care. She tried all of the medicines she knew, different mixtures at different levels…but nothing seemed to work. The harder she tried the more frustrated and hopeless she became.

She had gone through medical school and had been trained to care about all of her patients, and she did…but the one sitting in front of her now hit her harder than the rest. She hadn't known Cameron that long but she was feeling the pain of his illness keenly. It was only a doctor's concern for a patient, she told herself, but as she checked his vitals her hand lingered longer than necessary on his wrist and she knew that she was lying to herself in order to soften the blow for if/when he finally succumbed to the illness and became lost to her forever.

She'd only really begun spending time with him in a non-professional manner in the last couple of days. Despite her best attempts to rebuff his invitations, Carolyn had eventually been persuaded into having lunch with the Lt. Col. in the cafeteria one day. Despite her best efforts she had been charmed by the man - there was just something about his easy confidence and positive attitude that she had found surprisingly endearing.

He certainly wasn't the kind of man she was used to. When Carolyn dated, which wasn't often, it was with the more scholarly men in her field. Men who were as addicted to their work as she was and whose ideas of a wild night were to have a couple of glasses of wine and watch back-to-back episodes of their favorite shows. They were all good men in the sense that they cared about their jobs and their patients, but none of them loved their jobs in the same way that Cameron did…or were as unflinchingly kind and generous to those around them as he was. She had seen the way he interacted with both his teammates and the rest of the staff at the SGC. He respected his superiors as much as he respected his peers and those he commanded. If Cameron had chosen medicine over flying, he would have made one hell of a doctor, she thought.

She smiled briefly as she recalled the conversation they had had only a month before in her office. She had been once again rebuffed his invitation to join her for lunch off-base, claiming work as an excuse. While most men's pride would have been too badly injured to ask again after such a rejection, she soon learned that Cameron Mitchell was a different breed of man. She should have known that he liked a challenge, and her rejections had only made him more determined to succeed. Every day since then he had come in at the same time and had asked her the very same question. She had said no each time until last week when she had finally given in with an exasperated smile.

But now the smile she had on her lips began to fade as she came back to reality and saw the numbers listed on the chart in front of her. He was getting worse. Vala's healing device had long since failed to exorcise the virus, and the drugs she was currently pumping into his system were merely delaying the inevitable. For the past two days she had watched him get weaker and weaker until he had eventually lost consciousness - now she was going to have to watch him die, helpless to stop it from happening.

Just one more person who would be lost to her - one more patient and one more friend. And despite her own hesitancy, that's exactly what he had become. A warm and familiar face in a sea of strangers. He was the only person on base, aside from her father, that she had had any kind of conversation with outside of medical concerns, and he was the only person whom she actually found herself looking forward to seeing every day at work. She didn't really know why, but Cameron Mitchell had chosen to become a part of her life whether she wanted him to or not – and only now did she realize how grateful she was for that, and how alone she would feel without it.

Her eyes became misty as she thought about what she would be losing, and the urge to remove her helmet and gloves became increasingly harder to ignore – if only to know what it would be like to feel the warmth of his hand in hers or the feel of his cheek against the back of her hand. And that's when she saw the light reflecting off the monitors, and as she turned around she was enveloped by it.

But as quickly as the light had appeared it vanished back into the distance and she was once again left alone with her patient. Carolyn hadn't the faintest idea about what had just happened and didn't have time to think about it when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the previously comatose patient beside her suddenly awaken. She instinctively reached her hands up to his face, forcing herself to accept that what she was seeing was real.

"Colonel!"

"Oh, wow," he paused as his eyes adjusted to the light. "You got a couple of aspirin?" he asked, his voice hoarse and unsteady.

She wanted to laugh but all she could do was sit there speechless beside him, cupping his face in her hands, and unable to think of what to say next. How had this happened? She saw the charts, she knew his stats. But as she glanced at the monitors all she could see was that they had all changed. The numbers were wrong – well, they were right for any healthy patient, but just a moment ago Cameron had been hours away from death's door. How was this possible?

"Doctor," she heard her assistant call from behind her. She could hear the room come to life around her and while she knew that other patients would no doubt require her attention, she couldn't help but linger at Cameron's bedside.

She didn't know how this had happened, and frankly she didn't care. Cameron was okay and that was all that mattered to her in that moment. She wanted to tell him how glad she was to see him awake, to say things that she wasn't even ready to admit to herself yet. Instead she simply asked, "How are you feeling, Colonel?"

He made a noise that sounded almost like a scoff, "Ah, now see. One small case of the flu and you're already back to callin' me 'Colonel.'" He swallowed laboriously before continuing in mock disappointment, "Now I'm gonna have to start all over again." For the first time in what seemed like forever she finally allowed herself to laugh – she had to hand it to him, Cameron Mitchell was nothing if not persistent.


End file.
